Part Two of In the World of Prisoners
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: It's been years since I co-authored this with Faceless Dragon. Some have asked for the second half to the first half which is posted on my old account. Here it is! The wizard Abraham continues his adventure. After being captured by dark elves, Abraham fights necromancers, falls in love, and proves what he believes to be true in his heart- unity and friendship matter.
1. Chapter 1

I left Roanna to her white magic lessons in order to check on Vaythose. I sighted the aspiring elf spy examining a great stone wall that appeared to have been sheered in half.

"Have you made any new discoveries?" I asked. Vaythose did not look up from his inspection.

"Nothin' really useful. Just, it looks like there was quite a fight here at some point." Vaythose pointed to a segment of the wall he studied. "If you look carefully you can see that this wall was finely cut with something, but you can also see some old charcoal on it like something burned it, too. I don't know what would do that."

My mind's eye came alive with visions of divine justice and bright light. "A fiery sword must have been used. In my travels in the Unicorn Empire I have seen angels carry great swords of fire that can shear through stone and steel, not so much by cutting, but by burning."

A smirk formed on the dark Elf's face.

"I knew the Faceless and the Angels couldn't be at peace for that long. Anyways I think it's safe to assume there isn't anything here that would help us control a one-headed Hydra. So I'm thinking we should head into the forest."

I nodded in agreement. "Let's first head up a mountain and get a good view of where they may have left a path."

"I know to do that already," Vaythose snapped.

"Really? I did not think you did, because it is related to spying." I teased.

Vaythose hissed. "Oh yeah, well let me give you another surprising tip. Stop getting yourself captured dumb ass." I laughed.

It did not take long for us to hike high enough to see scars in the forest left by Hydra herds eating trees. We then made our way to the paths. The Hydra had stomped down much of the vegetation that was in our way, but our path was made difficult by Vaythose's inexperience with the forest. He jumped frequently, startled by the calls of the colorful, tropical birds, and I had to remind him constantly to cover his hair to keep out small serpents and spiders which could be dangerous.

Later, Vaythose noted that the Hydra tended to walk by rivers and therefore suggested making a raft out of logs, floating on the river. I noted the so called "logs" he found were in fact crocodiles and I suggested that he leave them alone lest they eat him.

Vaythose was truly unfamiliar with surface creatures for the only ones he knew were the spiders, which themselves traveled in caves, and some creatures called water elementals. Water elementals are spirits that collect water to make artificial bodies for themselves, though I knew some wizards who could summon them to use in battle as they themselves can cast powerful ice spells. As it turns out Dark elf warlocks can also summon water elementals, as Vaythose explained to me when we saw some hovering above the river we walked beside.

After an hour or so of hiking Vaythose and I became silent as the exhaustion of hiking made talking a tall order. Still we pressed on, climbing over fallen trees and avoiding venomous snakes that made their way amongst the dead leaves. Tired as we were, we only stopped once to drink water and rest before we finally arrived at the herd of Hydra which we had sought.

Vaythose pushed me off the path made by the Hydra and whispered, "Quick, hide in the bushes."

"That was not necessary," I said back in a hushed, but angry tone as we stumbled to the ground. Vaythose lay on the ground silently observing the beasts we had worked so hard to track down. Heat as well as anxiety drew sweat from my forehead.

They were not more than 70 meters away from me. Great behemoths whose necks allowed them to reach the tallest trees even higher than giraffes, and their bodies were even more massive than elephants. I thought the world would shake when they walked, and when one of the beasts let out a roar the vibrations in my chest made it feel like it did.

"They are even bigger than the Hydra back at your caves," I noted with hushed astonishment.

"Except for those ones over there," Vaythose pointed to several heads poking out of the forest brush. Sure enough several little Hydra approached the lager Hydra that roared only a few moments ago. The larger Hydra gave one more loud roar and with that the smallest Hydra which, just tall enough to touch my chest, came plodding out of the brush like the others. As though to respond to its mother the baby called back by saying, "Mew". The smaller Hydras all had large eyes for their bodies and had short stumpy legs that would have been near useless for running; there was no doubt then that offspring Hydra needed to be protected by their parents. The size difference between parent and offspring was stark. The smallest Hydra was a little smaller than a baby elephant, though the mother was much larger than an adult elephant. Surly I thought, there was a high risk of one of the parents stepping on their own offspring? I pondered the paradox, and so did Vaythose.

"You see how much bigger the mother is than the babies? They have to be like that, because if they weren't the egg shells would get too thick for the babies to even hatch."

"Really?" I whispered.

"Yeah. Back at the caves we always gotta separate the baby hydra from the mothers or else they'll get stepped on." I raised an eyebrow.

"And yet the mother Hydra seems to have no difficulty working around her offspring without crushing them. The other adult Hydra are also seem to have no such difficulty."

"Must have been an instinct that was lost in the breeding," My Elf friend reasoned. "I don't think they would hesitate to crush us if we got close though."

We watched the behemoths for a while longer hoping in vain to get some insight that would help us control the mighty beast, but then we noticed two more beasts that would enter the scene. Vaythose saw one of them out of the corner of his eye. "The water elementals don't seem to have any trouble being near these Hydra." Sure enough there were several water elementals hovering around in the river where the Hydra drank.

My attention turned back to the wall of brush in which the mother hydra would not let her offspring go into. I barely saw something. When I saw it I was possessed with shock for never had such an elusive animal revealed itself to me before.

"Look Vaythose, a tiger," I said with hushed enthusiasm. Noticing the tiger's green, hungry, eyes in the brush was almost as awe inspiring as seeing the Hydra for I knew what rare beasts they were, but this was lost on Vaythose.

"A ti-what?"

"It's a kind of predator, a larger version of the little cats I brought on my ship. It is too small to challenge an adult so it must be stalking the offspring." My poor cave friend did not even know what to look for, but eventually even he saw golden/emerald eyes of the majestic animal. This majestic animal might have gotten its chance to snatch the smallest baby Hydra, as it had meandered towards the brush in which the tiger had its intended ambush prepared. However something would soon surprise us all.

"Skeet!" was the sound we all heard suddenly. "Did you hear that?" Vaythose asked with his attention perked. "One of the water elementals made that sound."

"What? Water elementals do not make any sound, it was probably a bird of some sort or a…" Then we heard the sound again. Indeed, it came from a water elemental.

"Skeet, Skeet, skeet" it said as it pointed its head towards where the tiger was hiding.

In response to this sound the mother Hydra instantly called its child back, and with a roar all the adults lumbered into a circle that surrounded all of the offspring. As the beast walked in the circle the hydra anxiously stomped around in the brush as though feeling around for whatever might threaten their offspring. One of the Hydra did find the tiger as it narrowly leaped out of the way of its foot. The Hydra pursued it for a distance before it turned back satisfied that the threat was far enough away.

Even so, the Hydra growled and roared anxiously, some of them even came closer to where I was hiding as they stomped through the brush. We left the area and came back when the animals had allowed themselves to casually scatter again. It simply would have been imprudent to stay with these animals, but the plans of mice and men do go astray and mine would too right then.

"I'm goin' in." Vaythose announced just as I was about to tell him we should leave.

"What?!"

"Gotta test something."

"Wait, don't…" Before I could say anything Vaythose wrapped himself in his cloak and became invisible. I waited with my heart pounding, wondering what he was up to. The Hydra had allowed their offspring to wander again, but I had no such luxury. Instead I was left to wonder if my invisible friend was getting stepped on or not. Even if I did not hear bones being crushed it did not mean Vaythose was safe. Then I heard a dreaded sound.

"Skeet." Vaythose was still invisible and yet the water elementals noticed him.

"Come on Vaythose get out." I thought to myself. I knew it would be only a matter of time before the Hydra began stamping randomly, possibly even stamping on Vaythose. All the hydras closed ranks except for one. The smallest Hydra calf found something on the ground that caught its attention and it started sniffing the ground. The water elementals continued to sound their alarm and the mother roared more anxiously and yet the hydra offspring kept sniffing, intent to know what it was that he had smelt. Then he stepped forward.

"Ow!" Vaythose called out. With that, Vaythose's invisibility was shattered and as the hydra looked down into Vaythose's eyes it said, "Mew." The mother Hydra was much less accommodating.

"Ruuuuuuunnnn!" I shouted as the mother Hydra came barreling forth after Vaythose and I. I tried desperately not to trip over logs, putting every ounce of effort in a mad dash for dear life. Vaythose, the faster runner, caught up to me and was also gasping and dashing desperately. We were scratched probably a hundred times as we ran through the branches, but all we noticed was the loud crashing of trees and logs getting splintered, crashing that was getting closer and closer to us no matter how hard we ran! Tears fell down my eyes as I could feel the lethal and vengeful intent of the mother hydra. Had the trees not slowed her down and had she not finally decided to retreat back to her offspring we would have surely been crushed.

After our running Vaythose and I fell to our knees in exhaustion and that is when Vaythose said gasping, "Did you notice the mother never stepped on the baby when she was chasing us?"

My response was, "Shut up Vaythose. Shut up." I turned my back on him only to hear yet another terrifying sound.

"Mew!"

"I can't believe it followed us!" Vaythose said with a bitter hiss as his narrowed eyes and crossed brows looked upon a plump baby one headed hydra.

"I think he's adorable," Roanna countered. Vaythose hissed at Roanna's rebuttal.

"When that little sucker tracked us down its mother came tromping after us again and if you didn't summon that living puddle in time we would've been flattened." Sure enough, there was a water elemental standing between Roanna and a mother Hydra who contented herself by eating the leaves of a very tall tree.

"Mew," called the baby hydra as Roanna patted it between its nostrils. Every time Vaythose heard the 'mew' sound the baby creature made he shuddered. While Roanna and Vaythose argued about the Hydra outside the pyramid, I was inside fiddling with the great obelisk. Since it was such an old device I wasted much time dusting off the runes, and detaching and reaching parts before I finally got the obelisk to show an image of the Ashan continent. By that time Roanna had decided to hike up the stairs to join me.

"What are you doing, Abraham? Are you going to talk with the first of the circle again?" I shook my head.

"No. I am going to talk with an old friend about working with water elementals. He was my first business partner and he knows not just how to command elementals but to hear them. He will help us for he is my best friend."

"Who is this friend then?" Roanna asked. "Another wizard?"

"His name is Tumjin and he is an orc." I noticed from the corner of my eye that Roanna became even paler than usual.

"Ummm... you mean the half-human, half-demons...those orcs?" Roanna shivered. I enlarged the map on the back wall and zoomed in on some mountains to the east.

"Are you crazy?!" Vaythose yelled out from down below.

"I've fought orcs before. All they know how to do is smash. They'll smash you if you keep this up." Vaythose growled as he recalled his run-ins with orcs.

"Tumjin is not like that," I said shaking my head. "Tumjin is wise beyond his years and is a kind friend."

"Aren't the orc allied with the necromancers anyways?" Vaythose argued.

"It won't matter to him." I searched the mountains on the great map wall.

I knew where on the map to find the village Tumjin grew up in, it was nestled on a plateau surrounded by pine forest, and yet I hesitated.

"Is this really where your friend lives?" Roanna asked. "It looks so...forbidding." Tumjin's home was a tall, ice capped mountain, with rocky cliffs that moved steeply into thick pine forest that I do not even think the one headed hydra could move through.

"Yes. I am sure he still lives here..." I responded distantly and with uncertainty.

"You haven't seen your best friend in such a long time, you don't even know he's there anymore?" The elf's voice was pitying.

"It has been years," I confessed. "He is most likely in his village, but to call and ask for his help now when I have failed to contact him after all this time..." I trailed off, but I did not need to say more to communicate my shame.

"How did you meet Tumjin?" Roanna asked.

"During the war between the wizards and the orcs we occupied a small orc settlement, and even though we were enemy troops he invited me for tea. I was the only one who accepted his invitation for it could have been a trap. By the same token it was risky for him to offer me the tea for he could have been seen as collaborating with an enemy by his tribe. We became friends nonetheless and a few days after we started a glass business together, but I still don't know if I can do this," I lamented.

"Hey!" Vaythose yelled. The elf decided to join us at the top of the pyramid.

"Our people are about to be crushed by a bunch of living dead people and you're not going to get help because you feel guilty? Get going already!" I nodded and continued to get in contact with my friend, Tumjin. Long ago my friend and I had assembled an "eye of the magi" and put a tent around it. When I was finally looking through the eye we had built, however, I saw, not the inside of a tent, but of a wooden building with shelves lined with tea pots and cups.

"Is this your orc friend's home?" Roanna asked. Since it was different than I remembered it I hesitated to respond.

"Tumjin?" I yelled out. "Are you there?" There was no answer. I called again and waited a moment but nothing happened.

"I suppose..." I began, "I suppose he is not here..." before I could finished Roanna gave a yelp! I looked around for what may have caused her to jump in fright, but then I heard his voice.

"Abraham!" The voice sounded like some combination of a person speaking and a lion growling. "Is that you?" I looked into the eye of the magi and there was a fearsome visage of a man with large tusks coming from the bottom of his mouth and fearsome red eyes that made Roanna tremble, but I knew this orc as my friend.

"Tumjin it is me, old friend."

"Ha!" My friend laughed "how long has it been?"

"Too long." I confessed. "How has life been?

With a wave of his arm he directed my attention to his shelf full of cups and tea pots. "Have a look. I got out of the glass business and finally started that tea shop I have always been ranting about."

"I will have to hear more about it, but it will have to be under less dire circumstances, for I need your help."

"In trouble again, I see. Well, I am always happy to help, but first you must introduce me to your new friends." Tumjin's voice gradually lowered from a beast roar to a more soft spoken one as he nodded to Roanna and Vaythose,

"Of course," I replied as I motioned my hand to Roanna. "This is the dark elf Priestess Roanna," Roanna bowed her head nervously.

"How do you do?" Tumjin asked.

"And this is the spy Vaythose," I introduced. Vaythose waved, but both he and Roanna had a vacant look of surprise upon their faces.

"A pleasure to meet you both. Now please tell me your troubles, brother." With that offer I told Tumjin all about how I came to the island of the dark elves, how I had proved myself to Sinatara, how I had encountered the great black dragon, and finally how I had learned of a necromancer's plot to take over Sinatara's lands. Through it all my old friend barely reacted, but there were a few times in my story where his wide eyes betrayed his shock at my story. Finally I told Tumjin about the one-headed Hydra and the water elementals and that is when we got to business.

"That is quite an adventure, brother, even for you. But I can speak with the water elemental for you. Bring it in."

I looked to Roanna and so did everyone else, which was her cue to use her magic to summon the water elemental to us. Violet energy swirled around Roanna as the elemental manifested before us out of a cloud of energy.

Tumjin leaned forward. "Now let's see what the water spirit has to teach us." He went silent as he looked into the face of the water elemental and as the water elemental looked to him. I knew that even though that neither the elemental nor my friend spoke, they were communicating. I had seen goblins and orcs talk with water elementals before. My elf friends seemed confused by the heavy silence that fell upon us, and gave each other confused looks in hope that one or the other would have information. Just when Vaythose was starting to whisper to me, Tumjin spoke.

"The water spirit does not like to be called a living puddle," he said.

"The Fuck!" Vaythose snapped in reply.

"The spirit would also like an apology from the incompetent one that insulted it." The water elemental turned to Vaythose. The eyebrows of the incompetent elf crossed. He clenched his fist at the water elemental, but then let it drop. "I'm sorry for calling you a puddle." Apparently satisfied the water elemental turned back to Tumjin.

"The water spirit also says that he will help you train the hydra." I nodded.

"Um..." Roanna began hesitantly.

"What is it Roanna?" I asked

"If I am going to train the hydra I need something to reward them with...does the water elemental know if the one-headed hydra...likes anything?"

Tumjin looked to the elemental again and then translated, "He says that he knows you have been learning the art of white magic and says that even if the hydra do not have wounds they will find healing spells soothing. He also says that his yelps can serve as an incentive since the one-headed hydra react to them."

Roanna smiled, and Vaythose exclaimed, "That's perfect. Now Roanna can practice white magic and train hydra at the same time." I did not think it was as easy at Vaythose stated, even so Roanna seemed to be filled with confidence.

"Thank you, Mr. Tumjin this is very helpful," Roanna bowed. "Now please excuse me for I must begin training the hydra at once."

"It is always a pleasure to help friends of Abraham," Tumjin remarked.

"And it is always a pleasure to have your help old friend," I stated in gratitude.

Tumjin rose off his seat. "Well, the rush in my tea shop will begin soon and it seems you are very busy yourselves." Though Tumjin was politely excusing himself I could not help but experience a tinge of guilt.

"I will contact you again soon," I promised as I rose up. "And we will be able to catch up." My old friend gave a nod, but before he could leave Vaythose called to him.

"Hey wait a second," Vaythose called. "I gotta ask you something." The orc turned and listened.

"You and Abraham's people had been at war for a long time and plus you orcs are allied with the necromancers so why would you help us out, and why are you calling Abraham brother?"

Sensing that his answer would take a few minutes Tumjin sat back down. "Brother! I have fought many a battle for my nation, and I have wounded and been wounded. And what I have learned is that you should never let any nation get in the way of a good friendship, not even your own! I know that more than ever after meeting Abraham." At this I smiled and blushed.

"Though you and I are not of the same race, Vaythose, you and I were both created by mother earth and father sky and so even if we are not blood brothers we are spirit brothers." Tumjin then rose up and said, "Well I should be getting to work, Brother..." Tumjin turned to me, "Until we speak again."

"Until then," I repeated. Vaythose did not bid Tumjin farewell as he walked off, for as a soldier he must have found the wisdom he received alien, but so profound as to make him speechless.

"No, no, not that way," Roanna said to the great mother hydra as it started walking away. "Skeet, skeet, skeet!" was the sound that came from the water elemental as it chided the hydra with Roanna.

Roanna had been making good progress training the hydra for she was even able to get one to let her ride on its back. Her progress on white magic however was something that I needed to check, which is why I was once again using the great obelisk. It would soon be time for Roanna to begin her next lesson so I contacted the office of the archmage in hopes of reaching Roanna's white magic teacher. It was to my surprise then who I reached was none other than the archmage himself.

"Hello Abraham," Saldin greeted. It was in great modesty that I was greeted considering the archmage's high stature. "I did not expect to see you today." "Nor I you, great mage," I said in response. "I only desired to learn of Roanna's progress from her white magic teacher before she begins her lesson."

"Well, you are speaking to the right person. I have taken it upon myself to teach her white magic and she is a talented student. She has already learned how to make scars fade." I did not ask the archmage who was running my country while he was teaching Roanna white magic. I simply listened while the archmage lavished his student with compliments.

"Before you know it, she will be learning the word of life spell, she is simply brilliant. Plus she is such a sweet, modest girl. If only my other students were as differential and respectful as she is." The word of life spell is the only white magic spell that can do harm, if only to undead and demons, but it is also the hardest white magic spell to learn.

"This is excellent news, my lord," I said excitedly. "We have at most a few weeks before the necromancer army is amassed. Do you think she can know high-level white magic by then?" I asked. At that point the archmage was taken aback.

"Well, I do not know about that..." he began, "I mean I have never seen any student master high-level white magic in any time under two years. It would have to be quite a crash course."

"I see," I said as I tried to bury my disappointment. The archmage was right. I looked at Roanna outside the pyramid. She was too busy training to notice that I looked at her with eyes that pitied her. A mountain of work was ahead of her. The pressure of having to do all this work to protect her people's lives must have only added to her burdens. I thought she had many more than anyone should be allowed to bear.

"Do not worry. Whatever happens, we will find a way to protect Roanna's people," The archmage assured. "In the mean time I will continue to teach her."

"I thank you for this great archmage, but I cannot help but wonder why have you taken up this task?"

The archmage sighed. "With the necromancers as powerful as they are and the situation as dire as it is, this is the most important task for the existence of this nation and besides..." The archmage took a second to reflect on what he was about to say. "I miss teaching. It is much more fulfilling than the paper work and meetings I have to engage in now that I am archmage." My lord Saladin flopped back into his chair. "I should retire soon and start teaching again."

I gave a nod in the archmage's direction to let him know I respected his feelings on the matter. From behind I heard footsteps and that is when I realized that Roanna was not downstairs training the hydra. "I think it's time for my lesson now."

"One moment," I said to both Roanna and the archmage, "There is something I must say." I rose up and walked to Roanna and looked into her beautiful violet eyes and informed, "I think it's time for Vaythose and I to leave."

"Really?"

"Yes, we have done all we can here, and we need to go back to assist Sinatara,"

"Well...do you know the way back?" I nodded.

"I checked the map provided by the obelisk, there is a way back on the River that takes us to a cave and portal the one-headed hydra can fit through." Roanna smiled weakly for she knew we had to leave, but she did not want us to. I had to assure her. "Roanna when you have finished training all the hydra and learned white magic you can join us and help us save your people" After what I told her, I felt her body stiffen in resolve.

"Take the biggest hydra with you. With the water elemental, you should be able to ride her back and I can summon another water elemental."

"I will."

"But before you do that..." Roanna blushed, "You have to let go of my hands." To my surprise I was gently holding Roanna's delicate small hands in the palms of mine. Sometime during the conversation I had grabbed her hands without ever realizing it.

"We will see each other soon."

"Good bye, Abraham," The archmage called out.

"I will see you both soon," I said back while waving. Roanna said nothing. She only sat down cross-legged to begin her lesson.

I found Vaythose sitting on a block of stone using a stone wall to support his weight as he leaned back.

"Did you hear Vaythose?"

"I heard we are getting out of this bug-filled, overheated, swamp forest and heading home or did I hear what I wanted to?" I smiled and that answered his question. The heat was getting to Vaythose as he was not energetic. Vaythose was constantly wiping sweat off his forehead.

"We are going, friend." Vaythose found the strength to get up and somehow the water elemental managed to get one of the hydra to lower its tail so we could walk up it and onto the mighty beast's back. Through the water elemental we were able to command the Hydra to take a swim down the river, for that was the way to a portal that would take us back to the cave that would lead home.

As we traveled I spent most of my mind's energy worrying about Roanna and of the future. I could not imagine how even Roanna could accomplish all the tasks given to her, and therefore it was all the harder to see how we could survive the necromancers. Under any other circumstances, desperately hanging on to the back of a hydra's neck would have been an unpleasant ride, but I wanted this trip to last as long as possible, for the moment we stopped traveling was the moment I would have to face the dreaded possibility of dying by the hands of the undead.

"This trip has been too short," I lamented as we came to the portal at the end of the River.

"What the hell?" Vaythose snapped. "The quicker we get there the better. Besides, the trip has taken most of the day. What the hell do you want?" I went silent and gave Vaythose a fretting look. "Oh I get it," The dark elf realized. "You're afraid of facing those undead things aren't ya?" There was a glow of white energy as we passed through the portal so intense we had to cover our eyes, but when it was over we were in a dark cave.

"Why are you not afraid?" I asked pointedly. "We are outnumbered and out powered and if we lose we will die at best." Vaythose took a few seconds to ponder my question as he pulled out a glow crystal.

"Well, I guess it's because Sinatara spent most of her life being the underdog and getting in and out of tight spots."

"As bad as this though?" I asked.

"No, but I think this is going to be her masterpiece," the elf said with a wiry smile. I only sighed.

"Have faith in Roanna too," Vaythose said suddenly. My eyes widened at Vaythose's out-of-the-blue demonstration of perception. "I know you're worried about her, but no one learns magic as fast she does. I promise ya that." I smiled and then gave a quick nod. "So now where do we go from here now that we've come to a dead end?" As Vaythose noted we had come to a cave wall.

"According to the map we have to force our way through one of the walls to get onto a road," Vaythose lifted up his glow crystal and looked around. "We just keep going straight through that wall in front of us. I can tell by the lines that there was a cave in. That must be where the road is."

"I see." I tapped the hydra on the back to get it to pull back.

"Prepare yourself," I warned as I pulled my fist back. My hand began to glow and there was blue energy around me as I cast a powerful fireball spell that blasted a hole into the wall. The hydra became agitated at the sight of the explosion and threatened to buck us off, but the water elemental calmed it with squeaks.

"It's too bad we didn't know this way when we first came down, it's a lot easier," Vaythose noted. Sudenly we heard a shrieky voice that caused our hair to rise and our spines to stiffen.

"Oh, I would not say that," it said. Vaythose and I looked at each other. We were frightened but proceeded through the hole I made anyways. When we came out we found an army of multi-headed hydra and dark elf warriors riding two-legged lizards. All of them threatened us with their spears. I heard a sinister cackle on a cliff above us and there to my horror was Maydanna laughing at our misfortune.

"How generous of you to have saved me the trouble of searching for you," the dark elf Witch gloated. As her dark elf troops closed in on me I raised my fist and had energy emitting from it as a warning of my spell power.

"Stay back!" I yelled. My threat did not deter Maydanna's troops, but the growl from the hydra I rode was enough to bring them to a halt, though they still threatened us with their weapons.

"Not so hasty my foolish friend." Maydanna rose her fist like I did and lightning emanated from it. "We know which one of us is the stronger caster of magic."

I whispered back to Vaythose "Can you think of a way out of this?" Vaythose simply shook his head. "I will buy us time somehow." Actually the one-headed hydra was keeping Maydanna's troops at bay by narrowing its eyes and by emitting a low growl that revealed its teeth, but I knew from Sinatara's earlier demonstration that dark elf lords could cast powerful spells. Surely Maydanna could injure the one-headed hydra severely if provoked. Still the standoff gave me an opportunity to buy more time.

"Why do you do this, Lady Maydanna? What threat could a petty lord like Sinatara pose to you the greatest lord of all the dark elves?" Maydanna raised her chin at me.

"I'm sure it must all be so confusing to a foreigner like you, for you cannot possibly understand our sophisticated way of life, but Sinatara's ideology is a threat to the freedom my ancestors created for our people. Sinatara must be crushed before her mad ideas spread." Maydanna had taken the bait after all, but she was becoming agitated. If she did that she could cast a spell any moment. I had to calm her down.

"Who are these great ancestors?" I asked with a degree of awe as to add empty flattery.

"I am granddaughter of none other than the great Tuidanna the founder of our people." Maydanna declared proudly with her hand upon her chest and her chin high. How good it was for me that the lady Maydanna loved to talk about her ancestors. "Long ago we dark elves were wood elves and the wood elves were separated into loosely connected states in the land we call Irollan. But then a despot rose amongst the wood elves and brought the wood elves under his centralized control much in the way Sinatara is trying to do today. All the other wood elves caved into the demands of this tyrant except my ancestor Tuidanna, who struck a pact with the Faceless and resisted and ultimately died trying to save my people. With Tuidanna deceased it fell to her daughter Eurina to lead our people to a new home, and she did so successfully despite the betrayal of Sinatara's father Sinatar." Maydanna paused for a moment as she reminisced on the proud accomplishments of those she was descended from. I thought I would have to come up with another way to distract her, but she still had other things to say about herself.

"Once I crush Sinatara's forces, our people can finally have their freedom secured." I doubted Vaythose had thought of a way out so I had to use more empty flattery to gain more time, but it was time to get serious as well.

"Even a foreign fool like myself can see that your cause is just my lady, but I know the necromancers well, you cannot trust them." As I spoke Maydanna reached for the veil that covered all her face below her eyes, the veil that I thought she wore out of modesty. "The Necromancers will betray you for they only believe in dea..." Before I could say anything else Maydanna paralyzed me with shock by revealing her face. I then announced, stuttering.

"I do not believe it...you have..."

"Yes. I have converted to necromancy," Maydanna explained as she revealed what flesh had already rotted off her face. I knew from smelling her earlier that she must have consumed formaldehyde no doubt to prevent herself from rotting, but she was already too late, for her nose was but a hole and her lips had given way to a permanent skeletal grin and there was no flesh on her enormous chin. Maydanna then proceeded to explain why she bastardized the natural order.

"Long ago my ancestors started to get a disease where they would not stop bleeding. Even the slightest wound could be deadly to us. In the end all of us died but me and the only way to preserve the blood line was to seek immortality through necromancy and that is why I converted." I took another look at Maydanna's chin which was long enough to be a beard and took into account Maydanna's bleeding disease and came to another terrifying conclusion.

"Necromancy...necromancy is not your only perversion is it? The Chin...The bleeding... You are an inbreed. You have been inbred for generations!" Maydanna only laughed.

"Yes, my family has worked hard to keep our bloodline pure. The different Dark Elf races must also be pure for any mixing would be a true bastardization of the natural order." Previously I had been afraid of Maydanna, but after what she told me, even with her soldiers pointing their spears at us, I only felt disgust. The repulsive witch continued to ramble. "Even if I failed to crush Sinatara, her plan of dominating the other races is doomed to failure for they are too different from each other to ever get along." Maydanna's last statement caused me to forget I was at a disadvantage.

"What do you mean too different to get along? I have gotten along with people from all over the world, I have befriended orcs, and elves, and Naga and Dwarves" I stated. I then shouted, "There are no people too different to be friends least of all the dark elf clans. Separated, you are like those multi-headed Hydra, with one stomach and many mouths that bite each other for the same food. Unity, not separation is the natural order and Sinatara is right to pursue it!" For a moment there was silence and stillness as though people were actually taking in what I said. The first to speak was Vaythose.

"Great speech, but couldn't you have waited till I thought of a way out of here first?" I went cross eyed as I realized my mistake.

"Enough babel! Take these fools in!" Maydanna commanded. I was certain that the end of me had come at that point, but then the one-headed hydra gave a low grumble, the water elemental made a squeak and we all started moving backwards.

"Are you having the hydra move backwards?" Vaythose asked nervously.

"I am not," I said with equal fright. I faintly heard one of our enemies ask,

"Is that one-headed hydra smiling?" With no orders from me or Vaythose the hydra turned it's body so its right side faced the enemy and swung its tail out, tempting the multi-headed hydra eager to bite something. By exposing so much of its body to the enemy our hydra was vulnerable.

"Why have you stopped?" Maydanna inquired of her troops. "Get them already!" The multi-headed hydra stopped even if the dark elf troops beside them tried to nudge them forward. All the heads of the enemy beasts snapped the air, menacing. But not one of them moved forward. Finally one of the enemy hydra lunged at our hydra's neck and would have landed a blow if only another head of the same hydra did not strike our hydra's tail, causing the beast to spin out of control. Another one of the hydra looked ready to lunge, but then it suddenly turned to its right.

"They are confused," I noted. "Because our hydra has left so many vulnerabilities the other hydra heads cannot agree as to where to attack." It was this disagreement of the hydra heads that caused so many of the enemy troops to be kicked aside and to panic as they struggled to get control of their own beasts.

"And you didn't think of this?" Vaythose asked.

"I did not," I announced, for I was more proud of our hydra's cunning than I ever could have been of myself had I come up with the idea.

"You idiots! The lot of you!" Maydanna screamed. "I will finish this myself." The witch raised her hand to cast a spell, but happily our hydra had thought of that too. It reared back a little further and then before Maydanna could fire off her spell the hydra charged. Vaythose and I held on for our very dear lives because then the hydra leaped onto the cliff where she stood. There was a crack as one foot of our beast landed on the evil witch. I thought the witch might have been shattered, a fate I almost suffered when I almost lost my grip. Instead, she screamed in frustration. "Get this thing off me!"

"Please do not do that again." I pleaded.

"Oh fuck! She is gonna do it again!" Vaythose lamented. Sure enough the hydra jumped off the cliff over our enemy, and this time Vaythose and I could not hold back our screams. The enemy hydra tried to turn around to face us but again they were once again confused and spun themselves into a circle. We landed with a hard impact that almost shook us off, and it felt like our hearts were going to leap out of our chests. Our hydra, on the other hand, just took a moment to recover from the hard landing and then calmly walked away from our confused enemy. We were free. For the moment.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually the one-headed hydra allowed us to control it again. We had the hydra lumber back to where we had last met the great black dragon on the surface for we had hoped that Sinatara would be waiting for us there. On the way, I caved in pathways with my spells, so that the enemy would be slowed down. On our way, Vaythose and I encountered an old friend of mine.

"It's John," I said, as I pointed. Vaythose looked at the man.

"You mean the guy who's walking around in a circle like he doesn't know his face from his butt?" John was pacing in a circle, mumbling something incoherent. I slid down the tail of the Hydra to check on John.

"John are you alright?" John just continued to mumble. "Are you alright?" I placed my hand upon his shoulder. He then yelled as he swung around suddenly and whipped my hand off his shoulder.

"Who are you?!" John asked in complete fright.

"It is me Abraham," I pleaded, "Do you not remember me?"

"He doesn't remember anything," said a feminine voice from behind a rock crevice.

"Kythosa," I stated as I saw her nestled between two rocks.

"I can explain more later, but right now we got to get to the meeting with the boss. Come on, this way." Kythosa led us through a small cave. By now Vaythose had also gotten off the back of the hydra along with the water elemental. As we walked by Kythosa sniffed the air, and scrunched her nose in disgust. "Ewww you guys smell like you pissed your pants. What happened?" It was impossible for Kythosa to see the hydra from where she was standing so I had to point to the one-headed hydra that frightened me earlier.

Kythosa blinked in bewilderment. "Holy shit! That thing is...wow." I could not help, but smile at her reaction. When Vaythose and I first started our journey into the deeper caves we knew we might need a change of cloths since were going deep into filth, so we found a hidden corner and changed out of our filthy pants. We then proceeded to where Kythosa guided us and we came to a room where Sinatara and Saylag had already begun a meeting, but what surprised me was the sapphire glow of mystical marble arranged into rectangular blocks.

"The heroes return," Saylag commented. "Welcome back."

"I wish I could say it was good to be back, but since I have come on the eve of battle and only to find my friend unable to remember me or anything else, that would be difficult to say." I looked to the mystical marble pile. "Where did this come from?"

Sinatara stayed focused on a map on her stone table. "That is the mystical marble I purchased from you. You mentioned a spell that allows one to summon objects from afar at the expense of one's memories. I not only surmised the spell, but found a way that would take someone else's memories instead." My eyebrow twitched. Saylag would prove to be more sympathetic than Sinatara.

"I am sorry it came to this, Abraham. We can repair your friend's memories later, I'm sure."

Kythosa strutted in from behind me. "Yeah well, let's not repair the part that remembers being a sexist ass." She ended her sentence with a stomp of her heel, and took her place between Sinatara and Saylag. Vaythose stayed at the entrance and leaned up against a wall with this arms folded. "Anyways, we better talk strategy because our enemy is huge."

Sinatara looked up from her map and around the room. "Where is Roanna?"

I swallowed my own saliva nervously. "She had to stay back and learn white magic and train one-headed hydra." Everyone's response was to stare blankly at me, which was my cue to tell them the long story of what happened when we went down deep below the earth through the portal to the rainforest. As I spoke Vaythose had interjected several of his own comments when I brought up the one-headed hydra.

"So we may not have Roanna's powers when we fight the necromancers," Syalag noted. "It is just as well for we made this plan on the assumption that she might not join us."

Kythosa stepped forward to the table. "Before Maydanna had the necromancers on her side our allies were a suitable deterrent, so we think if we take out the necromancer army, Maydanna's army will stop."

Saylag looked into my eyes and interjected, "Such will be easier said than done, however, for the necromancer army is thirty times our size. Even if we assume they are low quality troops, we are vastly overpowered."

Kythosa leaned forward and placed her left hand the map and her right fist on her side. "Even so, we're taking a stand right here." Kythosa pointed to a part on the cave map where there was a valley. "In our rear we are going to have our minotaur, and our long range fighters. As the enemy approaches, my troops and I are going to engage in hit and run attacks along side our Calvary and as the enemy closes in we will hide in the rear along side the minotaur and the like."

I took my place on the opposite side of the map as Kythosa. "But I do not think even your infantry can take on the undead numbers."

"We know," Sinatara interrupted. "But there's more." Sinatara then locked her fingers together. "We will be breaking down the mystical marble into dust and lacing it onto our weapons. That way whenever our troops attack they will leave the dust behind making the enemy more vulnerable to my elemental magic. That's when I will begin an elemental chain attack."

I raised an eyebrow. "Elemental chain?" Saylag responded to my inquiry.

"Fire can be enhanced by wind, and anyone who's seen a hurricane over the ocean knows wind can be enhanced by water and everyone who's seen a fast running current knows water can be enhanced by earth and anyone who's seen magma knows earth can be enhanced by fire."

"That's not all either," Kythosa stated. "I think you learned a long time ago that everything has an inner element. A fire or a zombie can have water elemental magic in it and if it is attacked with a spell of the opposite element then not only is it more vulnerable, but the inner element magic changes."

It was then up to Sinatara to explain the final part of the plan. "We need to make sure that the inner element of our enemies is wind so they are vulnerable to the initial earth spell that starts the chain. This will allow me to archive maximum damage with my spells.

I leaned, and rested both my hands on the map. "If you take on necromancers they will come after you with dark magic; magic that weakens troops, slows them, and even controls their minds. I know a single white magic spell called 'cleansing' that can cure dark magic if it is used, but I can only use it for so long before I am exhausted. We will have to defeat these enemy quickly." Saylag rested his chin on his hand.

"It is also to my understanding that the necromancers can bring back any troops that we take down."

"It is true. We will have to bring their troops down faster than the necromancers can bring them back up. It is also true that if the necromancer Orison leads our enemy then their zombies will be enhanced for he is a master at crafting zombies. If Lucretia leads our enemy then their Vampires will be enhanced for she is a master trainer of her fellows."

"I see." Saylag responded. "This will be hard battle, but my fellow spies are giving our enemies false navigation information causing them to get lost. This gives us time to prepare. In fact, I should rejoin Maydanna before my absence becomes conspicuous. It's been a pleasure."

"Farewell," I said as he walked out of the room.

Sinatara stood up from the stone table. "You all have the plan now. Everyone, begin preparations."

First I placed a note describing the meeting with Lady Sinatara in a water proof pouch and tied it around the neck of the water elemental that had traveled with me. I cast a spell to send it back to Roanna, its original summoner.

What I had to do was straightforward, and its urgency was not lost on me. Yet when I went to collect my artifacts and engage myself in my studies of elemental magic I found I could not put my mind to it. I worried about many things, like whether I could come out of the great battle alive or if my friend John could be cured of his amnesia, and if the prophecy of the great black dragon, who predicted the demise of someone I love, could be averted. Most of all I missed Roanna. During evenings I would go to the surface to watch the sun set on the ocean horizon, hoping that its beauty would clear my mind, but after I had seen the sun set ten times, without having seen Roanna, I worried more. As time went on the prospect of battle seemed more and more distant to me.

I advised Kythosa and Vaythose on how to drill their troops to fight undead troops, and by participating in such drills I honed aptitude for the cleansing spell. Indeed the wooden sword fights, and healing of fake wounds filled me with confidence. However even with training and preparation for the coming conflict, my mind grew still more distant as I thought about Roanna. Indeed, Kythosa sometimes had to elbow me into awareness when my mind wondered during drills. By the time I saw the fifteenth sunset I thought only of Roanna and how she had not come yet. I contemplated that maybe she had not gotten the message I sent her. I feared something had happened to her. Perhaps she was having difficulty training the hydra or learning white magic. By the sixteenth sunset immediate reality would tear me away from my worries.

"They are coming!" shouted a young dark elf woman from the caves. She ran off to sound the alarm of the enemy we had been dreading. I was jerked to alertness by her call and made a dash down into the caves, where people were hurrying all around me, and I suddenly realized despite all my preparedness I did not know where my station was to be.

"Abraham," Kythosa called out from a cavern behind me. I turned around and saw her beckon me. I maneuvered through the living maze of troops rushing to their battle positions. When I caught up to Kythosa she turned around and marched with two knifes in her hands. "You know what your job is, right?"

"Yes. I will be using my cleansing spell to cure troops afflicted with dark magic spells."

Kythosa then said something else, but I failed to hear her for another unit commander of some sort was yelling, "Minotaurs and lizard riders are with me!"

"What?!" I yelled back to Kythosa.

"I said you'll be using my mount Bofo, just like in the drills! I give you to the boss now." The cavern led to a wide open space where Sinatara stood next to her Hydra. She stood tall with her resolute stone face, a picture of composure in an ocean of chaos as all her troops rushed and yelled around her. Kythosa veered away from me and shouted, "Blood furies assemble! Assemble!" With Kythosa's order many dark elf amazons gravitated towards her at break neck speed.

I turned to Sinatara and she asked,"Do you have everything?" I gave a quick nod in the affirmative. "It seems Roanna will not be joining us this night, which means you are the only who can counter dark magic."

"And my ability to do so is limited," I confessed. "I am far from an expert in light magic, however..." I reached into my sack of artifacts and after some shuffling I pulled out a jade colored ring, with runes carved into it and offered it to Sinatara.

"The necromancers sometimes use a spell called 'the curse of the netherworld' that can kill beings who are not demons or are not already dead. Conjoin this ring with your magic and you and your troops shall be protected." Sinatara examined the ring for a second before placing it on her finger. She then whistled, which summoned Kythosa's old mount the lizard like creature she called 'Bofo'. As Sinatara marched up her Hydra's tail she commanded me to get on Bofo and follow her.

I trailed Sinatara's mighty monster, and as we rode our army fell in line behind us on orders of her many sub-commanders. We all made our way upwards until we reached the top of the road. Then Sinatara cast a spell that caused the earth to tremble below our feet, an act that made Bofo nervous so I had to calm him down with reassuring words and pats, lest he cast me off his back. When the earth quake had ended four great crystals had risen out of the ground that lit up the battle field.

"This is where make our stand," Sinatara declared with a crack of the whip. I looked down and realized we were at the top of what could only be described as a vast cave valley and the path before sloped gently and widened down into a flat plain. From our height we could see the flat plain as clearly as a chess player sees his board. On the other end of the valley was another high point almost as high as ours where the necromancers would also be able to see and move their pieces.

Kythosa marched far in front of Sinatara. "Everyone! Assume wall formation in front of the boss!" Kythosa's tall, slender, muscular amazons assumed a scattered position far in front of Sinatara. After the amazons had taken their place, many minotaur, all carrying a battle ax in each hand, marched to take their positions much closer to their lord, but widely spaced from each other. Then several dark elves, riding on lizard-like creatures much like Bofo and carrying lances, fell in line between the spaces left by the minotaur with the exception of a few who slid in side by side with the amazons. Since at the top of the valley, where we were, the cave was narrow the minotaurs and lizard riders could stretch from one cave wall to the other.

Behind the tight minotaur/lizard formation were the hydra whose long necks could reach out from behind the line, and behind them stood several dozen tall dark elf women with whips. I asked Sinatara, who these women were and she said, "They are the shadow matriarchs. They are casters and long range fighters like you. I am surprised you haven't met them yet." I shrugged and then looked on to the battle field.

"Where are the dragons?" I asked.

"We will have no black dragons to assist us for they insisted on Roanna's presence. Some red dragons lurk above us in caverns, hidden from our view." I could not help but look up into the darkness. The black dragons would have been ideal for they are immune to all magic, even the dark magic of the necromancers. Still, stories of powerful red dragons leveling castles assured me we had a powerful ally.

I had been next to Sinatara's hydra this whole time, but when the battle started I knew from the drills that my fighting would be alongside Kythosa's amazons, so I could quickly assist them. The minotaurs made way for me as I took my proper place.

All of us stood at attention and waited. Each passing moment was torture, the kind felt for anyone on death row waiting to be hanged. The soldiers around me were stoic, yet every few moments the amazons would nervously spin their knives in their fingers or dig their heels into the rock like bulls ready to charge. The beast behind me, and Bofo took the time to scratch themselves, biting onto their flesh like a dog trying eat its fleas.

I may have had some dim hope that the battle would not happen that day, but that hope went into the thin air when I heard a rhythmic drumming from the other side of the valley. It was faint, but I knew the drumming was the many marching footsteps of the undead army come to crush us, and marching echoed through the great cave labyrinth. The marching became louder, and as the enemy approached I heard the clacking of armor. I had been at war many a time, but even so, sweat beads formed on my head.

I was tense and so when I heard a roar and a blast of fire above me I nearly jumped off Bofo. It was one of the red dragons expelling fire at something that was flying in the dark.

"What was that?" Vaythose yelled in a voice made shaky by his agitation. Even after the blast of fire I did not get a full image of what it was the red dragon was fighting, but even so I knew what it was that stalked us from above.

"It was a spectral dragon. Spectral dragons are the skeletons of dead dragons bound together with evil magic and possessed by the soul of a deceased necromancer. For this reason I will have to cast a spell on any necromancers before we slay them lest their souls be reused to make such creatures." As I spoke I could hear the scraping and clacking of the spectral dragon's bones hitting together as they flew away from us. The dread in my heart increased as the marching of the undead army became louder. Then when the marching became deafening we saw the soldiers of the undead army...all of them.

"Oh crap!" Vaythose lamented. "Are the necromancer armies always this big?"

"No. This is the largest I have ever seen," I replied. Within moments, a great ocean of zombies, skeletons and litches came spilling out from the peak on the other side of the valley, and in another few moments several of us were gagging, for we were overwhelmed by the stench of death. It was a smell I knew well, and yet I still had to hold down my vomit. There was a fearful screech as one of the normally composed amazons screamed, and flinched at a translucent specter above her head. I had to comfort the troops, and myself.

"Now remember these are all creatures we discussed," I tried to say reassuringly. "The zombies, the skeletons, the vampires. We know all of their weaknesses."

"Yeah, but we didn't talk about those things with the metal claws," Kythosa rebutted with slight fear in her voice. She pointed to drooling, toothy, creatures with humanoid form, but with growling, beastly attributes. The creatures had leathery skin and they looked up at us the with bottomless hatred burning in their eyes.

Then more strange monsters. "We didn't talk about those eight-legged creatures, either," Vaythose noted pointing to giant monstrosities who appeared to a combination of woman and spider.

After all the Necromancer troops had spilled onto the battle field, necromancer Orison rode in on a shambling, decaying corpse-horse and took his place safely behind all his troops. By his side was Lucretia, the vampire queen herself. The only one missing was the necromancer I saw earlier in Timberwood who took the form of a rat, but then in the form of such a small creature he would have been able to hide anywhere.

Lucretia strutted to the very edge of valley peak, and the undead troops made way for her as she did so. Then using the echo of the vast cave basin she made a speech. "Greetings most honorable Sinatara, and greetings to those who serve her! I am Lucretia and on behalf of our nation and in the name of great goddess Asha I implore you to surrender. As you can see our army is incomparably vast and Maydonna has told us all about your abilities and your troops insuring that we will be victorious. Note that your confidence will not help you for even with such a large army we have made precautions."

The vampire then took out her bastard sword and pointed to the drooling creatures that I was unfamiliar with. "These ghouls have not been used for centuries..." she then pointed to the spider-like creatures, "...and neither have the fate weavers, and so we know you would have been uninformed of their abilities." Lucretia then made sure to look directly at Sinatara. "Surrender your land to Maydonna, abandon your quest to unite the dark elves, and hand Abraham over to us and you and your people will be allowed to keep their lives."

I gulped down some fear, for against such overwhelming odds I would not have been able to blame Sinatara for surrendering and handing me over to the necromancers. It would been easier for me if only she responded instantly, but she waited instead keeping me in painful suspense. Everyone looked to Sinatara for a response, especially me. She took out her whip. She began muttering a prayer. Once again, I could not hear it all, but I knew some of it. I realized then she was saying a similar prayer to the one that Roanna chanted. As Sinatara spoke, all her troops began to follow her. Soon all of her troops were reciting the same prayer, not with fear but with courage. Sinatara then lifted up her whip, and from her high perch on her hydra cracked it in the air with a resounding snap.

The moral had returned. All of the Dark Elf troops, formerly afraid, cheered and called for the blood of their enemies. Lucretia turned her back on us and walked past Orison as though she intended to leave the battle to him. Sinatara and the zombie master looked to each other, and with a shout from both of them the battle had begun!

Even my heart thirsted for battle now. For what had I left, but death- that of my foes or myself? I charged down the hill alongside amazons and other lizard riders, while Orison sent his enhanced zombies lumbering down the hill. Orison unleashed a great cloud of darkness, which I knew to be the spell known as "curse of the netherworld," a spell that would have surely killed us, but Sinatara acted quickly and sent of blast of white energy to collide with it from the ring I gave her earlier. I looked up to see a disappointed scowl on Orison's face.

"Pay attention, idiot!" one of the amazons shouted as she grabbed the reins of my mount and pulled it out of the way of a great blast of energy. The blast was from a creature called a litch, a kind of skeleton mage that Orison kept in great abundance behind his line. A flock of red dragons flew in from the ceiling to counter the litches drawing their fire by hovering above them and dodging their attacks.

I looked to the great flood of zombies shuffling towards us. The amazons and lizard riders slowed their charge momentarily, and studied the enemies before them. After a few moments, Kythosa found several zombies that appeared to have an opening to attack. She directed some of her troops to attack those zombies before rushing into battle herself. Her troops ran in and slashed the heads off the vulnerable zombies, and then ran out leaving other zombies to slash at now empty air with cleavers.

The lizard riders were also cautious as they charged in and out, feeling for weakness in the enemy line with their lances. Some amazons found that when a zombie would parry an attack on their upper body from a lizard rider, they would be more vulnerable to an attack from below and vise versa. Amazons and calvary would take turns hitting and running, creating a cycle that caused Orison's zombies to loose their heads. If one looked closely one would notice that bits of dust would sprinkle from the blades of the dark elf troops, this I knew was the mystical marble that would make our enemies vulnerable to elemental magic.

"We are doing well," I shouted, "but be careful, everyone. They are holding back." I could feel Orison's gaze upon us, calculating, timing his attacks and spell castings. I quick looked to Sinatara. She was also holding back, for neither she nor Orison had the stamina to cast infinitely or even very much, and so their spells had to be timed carefully to maximize damage.

The zombies continued on their slow, but determined march to Sinatara's position, almost completely ignoring the harassment of the amazons and lizards. Unlike men, zombies have no fear. The skeleton warriors were next to come charging down the hill, all the while laughing at would could have been our coming misfortune. Orison unleashed his ghouls alongside the skeletons, or perhaps these drooling, toothy monsters were so eager to feed on our flesh the necromancer could not hold them back any more, general or not.

"Watch out!" I shouted. Amazons disengaged the zombies to evade the viscous ghouls bearing down on them. It was at this precise moment that Orison raised his staff to cast the slow spell upon the retreating amazons, and lizards, but I anticipated it, and countered with the cleansing spell. I knew Orison was scowling at me.

A few of our troops were wounded in the arms by the claws of the lunging ghouls, but none of them had fallen yet. Kythosa and her amazons found that even if the ghouls had tough, leathery, skin and were faster than the zombies, they would leave themselves an opening when they lunged at their prey. One elf warrior would dodge, and the other would run a knife in their open mouth, and on into their into their brains, sending them screaming to the ground. However, the ghoul attacks were only the beginning of Orison's schemes.

I pointed to our flanks. "Someone stop the skeletons!" The skeletons had run right past us for their desire was to surround us so that our troops would have less room to maneuver. Mobility was critical to a dark elf's battle.

Kythosa countered my speech. "No don't, wind element!" I then noted that Kythosa's eyes were white on white, meaning that she could see the elements within her enemies. The point was to make sure all enemies had the wind element in them, to make them vulnerable to elemental spells, but skeletons already had the wind element in them meaning any attack could re-alter the elements in them. My fear was elevated to panic levels as I racked my mind for a solution, for the skeletons were surrounding us and closing in. Suddenly, the skeletons were struck with a powerful bolt of lightning that decimated hundreds, creating an explosion of bones and weapons, while stunning others. The lightning was a spell cast from Sinatara and it was perfect, for it was a wind elemental spell that would not change the wind elemental in the skeletons. Such a spell was normally considered a weak spell in my kingdom, but reinforced by the casting ability of Sinatara, it proved devastating.

All of a sudden, I became disoriented. I had forgotten what I was going to do next and I would have been slashed by a ghoul had one of the lizard riders not cut it down first. The blood splattering on my cheeks brought me back to awareness enough to realize that Orison had cast the confusion spell upon me while I was distracted and he was in the process of casting another. I willed my way through the confuse spell so I could cure myself, and just as he got done casting the slow spell upon me I was once again in the process of casting. I had to concentrate.

"Someone protect me while I cast!" Several lizard riders came to my aid. While the lizard riders cut down enemies, I focused entirely on Orison. He would cast a dark magic spell and I could cure it. Orison was cunning to cast slow on me, but even even slowed I was able to remain one spell ahead of him, so much so that I even cured the slow spell on myself. However, Orison was not without his tricks.

"They're starting to swarm!" one of the lizard riders shouted. The necromancer had zombies focus on me, and since I was concentrating on countering spells I could not evade the attacks. Amazons and calvary closed in to protect me, but guarding me reduced their mobility. Zombies cleaved off limbs, and slashed open the throats of several of the amazons. With a wave of his hand, all of Orison's reserves were finally unleashed upon us, while the stunned skeletons were starting to move. One of the amazons finely took it upon herself to lead Bofo by the reins, so I could concentrate on counter casting, while still remaining mobile, but things were about to get much worse.

Orison's fastest troops caught up to his slowest so they could all fight as one. Now specters and corpses of every kind were swarming the battle field clogging it and further reducing our mobility. At the same time, bone dragons and ghosts would swoop down and snatch one of our troops from above. Red dragons would sometimes dive upon the bone dragons to protect us, but doing so allowed the liches to fire energy beams at us, for they felt less pressure from above.

Finally, one of the red dragons captured a bone dragon in mid air and then used it as a shield against the liches. Other dragons followed suit and we were protected. Our blades phased through the ghost harmlessly, but Sinatara's fire spells blasted out of existence any ghost that tried to swoop at us.

"Everyone form up and follow me!" yelled one our calvary commanders. The lizard riders each formed around the captain, some of them giving one last swipe at an enemy corps. The enemies were once again surrounding us, but the calvary commander led a sustained charge that plowed zombies and ghouls out of the way. All of us narrowly escaped enemy clutches, but we were all growing tired.

"This is getting heavy!" Kythosa shouted as she gasped. "Everyone get to the minotaur line." Once again, the Calvary commander led the charge, but he was stopped suddenly, by a fearsome opponent.

"Not so fast!" Lucretia warned. The vampire queen had disguised herself as a bat and swooped down in front of the commander, and his mount halted and reared. Lucretia slashed open the lizard's throat. Steed and rider collapsed on the ground, splashing spilt blood, and the vampire thrust her sword into the calvary commander's stomach.

Vampires manifested all around us, their swords unsheathed. Several of our calvary and amazons locked blades with the vampires, but the vampire princess bore her fangs and laughed. "My fellow vampires have several hundred years of training on you." Sure enough, the calvary and amazons who dared to engage vampires were cut down, and collapsed in pools of their own blood. Even Kythosa, tried and failed to duel one of the vampire warriors. She charged but, with a swipe of her opponent's sword, her two daggers were wiped out of her hands and she was knocked off balance.

I found my eyes locked into Lucretia's, whose wicked smile informed me that she was after my blood. The vampires moved in on us. Lucretia moved to cut down my mount ,and a vampire, after knocking Kythosa on the ground, lifted his sword to stab her. We would have all been dead if we did not have a hidden ace in the hole that not even I knew about.

"Guess a hundred years of training doesn't protect you vampires from invisibility, huh?" Vaythose stood over Kythosa holding a long pointed spear that penetrated deep into the vampire's chest. All the vampires around us except Lucretia had a silver stake in their heart from the hidden assassins. Only Lucretia was able to parry fast enough and be spared.

"Thanks, brother!" Kythosa said as she picked up her blades. With that, all of us scampered up and pushed ourselves up the steep hill in front of us, seeking safety behind the minotaur line. Unable to kill us all, Lucretia eye's twitched as we jumped over the vampire bodies that represented several hundred years of her work. Our hearts rose as were almost to safety, but then fell again when an enormous shadow was formed from something above.

"Look out!" Vaythose yelled as we all maneuvered to be out of the way of what looked to be a great web that fell upon us. Some of us, like myself, evaded the web by jumping forward, some of us, like Kythosa by falling backwards down the hill and some of the riders, amazons, and assassins were captured in the web as Vaythose was.

"God dammit!" cussed Vaythose as he struggled to escape. The ones responsible for the trap were the giant spider-creatures which I had been unfamiliar with, but they were a very real danger. They charged towards us and hissed, and used their all eight of their enormous legs to push aside fellow undead troops in order to get to us.

"Kythosa!" I yelled with dread. Though I had made it to slightly higher ground, Kythosa and some of her amazons were isolated and about to face these giant vicious creatures on their own and so I feared for her life. However, I did not forget that Orison would be able to cast spells at any time and so I looked to him ready to counter, for it was the only thing I could do to help Kythosa now. The amazon leader motioned for her amazons to stay back while she charged directly toward the strange creature that was pursing her. She stopped suddenly to find a weakness on the hard carapace of the creature, but decided to roll to get under its legs. From there she disappeared from my view, but I could approximate where she was as the spider-like beasts looked below and around each other to try and root her out. After a moment, the dark elf had climbed on top of one of the creatures, causing it to try and buck her off. Kythosa reacted by jumping to another creature, but on closer inspection I saw she leaving behind some dust from her knife.

Kythosa then let one of the spider creatures fling her off. When she had landed a good distance from the creature, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. That was the signal for Sinatara to unleash a fireball onto the spiders. The result was an explosion that not only destroyed several spider creatures, but the flame traveled along a hidden pathway opened by the mystical marble to incinerate still more in a great explosion of flame.

"All right. I'm out!" Vaythose yelled as he cut away some webbing in a half of a minute. The other troops were set free, too, for any soldier that escaped the web immediately cut web for troops that did not. After so much effort, we had finally reached the minotaur line. The minotaur and riders opened a hole for me, while the amazons and other riders simply jumped over the line as the minotaur ducked. Having finally made it to safety I turned around only to drop my jaw at a disappointing scene. Orison cast a powerful "raise dead spell". All the Ghouls that had been stabbed, all the zombies that had cut down, even the impaled vampires and charred spider creatures reassembled and rose again.

Kythosa must have seen that I was discouraged. "Don't worry, we did what we needed to do, most of our enemy have the wind element in them."

"But if the enemy tussles with our minotaur, the elements could get all a screwed up." The bull men and the lizard riders stared head long into great mass of undead stumbling up hill to fight them. Nothing we could have said could have disrupted their focus.

"I know." Kythosa acknowledged, "We'll have to back the line up and time our attacks to make sure all the elements line up." Kythosa then turned to the shadow matriarchs who had been passive through most of the battle.

One of the so called Matriarchs smiled. "We are ready."

"Here they come!" Vaythose warned.

One of the bull men on the line snorted and in response all the bull men tensed up, hunkered down, and readied their battle axes. The lizard riders raised their lances and the hydra behind us snapped at air, chomping at the chance to destroy enemies. The Shadow Matriarchs stood tall, letting some sort of energy form in their hands as though though they were readying to cast a spell.

The great swarm of enemies was closing in on our line with hungry ghouls at the front. The ghouls ran and leapt at the bull men only to be hammered to the ground by great battle axes, or to be ensnared by the lizard's jaws whose sharp teeth could penetrate even leather-like skin.

Ours, perhaps, was not a lost cause. The minotaur line was assembled brilliantly, for the enemy was always in one battle against either a lizard or a minotaur. These powerful units were our front line. Yet to their rear, lizard riders with their long javelins or the hydra, with their long necks, could reach down from behind our line devour enemies. From the rear of our army, the Shadow Matriarchs were able to unleash volley upon volley of energy upon the enemies so long as the spells were used strategically so as to not to alter the enemy's "elements." They also had another surprise.

When the undead were coming at us too fast and furious for even the minotaur to keep up, the Matriarchs cast the "slow spell" just like Orison had done earlier, only Orison did not have the cleansing spell to counter us. Skeleton warriors came to the line to be shattered. Zombies came to the line to be cut down. Specters came to the line be vaporized by Sinatara's spells and energy blast. Wraiths came to be shredded. Within minutes, a great pile of corpses had formed in front of us which the minotaur arranged as a wall to bottle neck the enemy.

Lucretia sent vampires as bats to fly behind our line, along with bone dragons, but the inside of our formation was protected, as well. The vampires had proved to be superior to Kythosa's amazons in close combat, but that was not so against the shadow matriarchs, who used their whips with such skill that they would swipe the swords right out of the vampires' hands. Their whips also had a spike at the end and used properly, the whip would extend as a vertical line and penetrate the hearts of the vampires.

Orison tried once again to use dark magic to weaken us, but as usual I countered quickly with cleansing. Orison tried to raise the dead that had fallen, but our troops brought them back down more quickly than he could cast. The necromancer army was falling and Sinatara was not even casting her powerful spells, but we intended to change that.

"The elements are aligned! The marble is laid down!" Kythosa announced. "LET 'ER RIP BOSS!"

Sinatara raised her hands and a violet energy formed around her. The earth began to tremble, and a great fire ball was unleashed upon the undead causing yet another blast that almost blinded me. But there were two problems.

"You fool, Sinatara!" one of the matriarchs haughtily yelled. "That blast killed some of our minotaur, and it was the wrong element! The elements are no longer aligned." Sinatara looked on confused, but not me.

"That wasn't from Sinatara, it was from another caster that was above us!"

"But who!?" Kythosa asked in panic. Neither Lucretia nor Orison were strong in the use fire magic. Suddenly the undead we defeated were rising once again. It was the raised dead spell but this time it was stronger than before, raising far more of our enemy than before. I looked to Orison, but though he was smiling at our misfortune he was not casting any spells.

"There's another necromancer!" I warned. "One that is much stronger than Orison or Lucretia!" My warning came too late, for the great pile of corpses that we used to bottle neck the enemy suddenly came alive and spilt upon the minotaur like an avalanche that cut and clawed. Kythosa hacked down many enemy that came after her, but soon there was a loud crack as a skeleton warrior shattered her ribs with a strike of a mace. The once proud warrior woman fell screaming into shriveling agony as the laughing skeletons moved to kill others. Still stone faced, Sinatara used spells to get rid of some of the enemy, but was restrained for fear of harming her own troops. Her caution proved to be her downfall as ghouls clawed their way up her hydra like a swarm of ants, while specters clawed at Sinatara, ripping flesh off her back. Finally the once great beast collapsed like a castle in an earth quake, its many heads spread in all directions. Red dragons flew in to assist us, and though their flame turned many undead into ash, their actions took the pressure of the liches who could now fire energy blast at us with impunity and the bone dragons piled upon the red dragons, biting them and clawing into their backs.

I desperately blasted any enemies that piled upon my friends, but for every ten I killed, there were hundreds to take their place. Everything was falling apart around me, and we were surrounded by a wall of undead. I had lost all sense of concentration as I blasted undead randomly, and my mind was full of fear.

Finally something hard, cold and heavy, cleaved into my back shoulder. It was agonizing when the zombie ripped his cleaver out of me. I yelled and collapsed. As more zombies came after me, I scampered away from them as fast as I could while on the ground, but that would prove to a bigger mistake for I went right into the clutches of my greatest fear.

Several vampires grabbed my arms with their ice cold hands. Their faces bore sadistic smiles. I was possessed with pure fear, when they stabbed their fangs into the my limbs. In my mind I screamed "NO!" but with my blood and my life so rapidly leaving me it came out as a shill, "nooo." I struggled to get free, but my strength was leaving me too fast. The world started to go black and my lids became too heavy. I let myself succumb to what I thought would be my final sleep. But then...I felt something. My eyes burst open. The pain in my limbs was fading. I felt a power, a kind of divine strength surging from with in me and I could awaken.

With a great surge of energy, that I never could before muster, I blasted away the vampires feeding off my arm, my injuries healing before my very eyes. Kythosa shot up off the ground and ripped through a wall of enemies to find the very skeleton that had injured her.

"That fucking hurt you, son of bitch!" Kythosa gave a strong kick to the skeleton's legs breaking them, and then with a powerful ax kick shattered the skeleton's skull.

The minotaurs, even while buried under enemies were suddenly able to lift the piles of undead upon them and cast them aside, while the red dragons found the strength to rip the bone dragons off their backs and throw them asunder against walls, while once again taking to the air. Sinatara, too, experienced a miraculous increase in strength and electrocuted all the ghouls that sought to feed off her flesh.

"What is this!?" Kythosa yelled with excitement as she clenched her fist to feel the divine strength with in her. I knew we were being enhanced by magic. There was only kind of magic that could enhance us, and only one person who could come to the battle able to use it.

"She's here," I said. I stood tall and announced, "Roanna has come!"

Suddenly, a great stampede burst through the cave wall and from out of the dust burst forth a great herd of one-headed hydra who shattered and flattened any undead in their way, while from above an equally great swarm of black dragons descended upon the undead like a dark blanket of fiery terror.

Lo and behold, there on the head of the hydra leading the charge was the angelic elf Roanna. Joyful tears formed in my eyes as I looked upon her, the pure maiden whose radiant and pious beauty set her above all of us. The vampires and other creatures of the dead tried desperately to scamper up her hydra, but I knew from the aura forming around her that those creatures were about to suffer from the worst fate any undead could ever imagine.

"She did it," I said crying, "She learned the word of light spell!" Roanna spread her arms out wide, and looked up as though she were being possessed by a voice from the heavens. With that, a great sphere of light formed around her and expanded, banishing all the undead that dared try to reach for her, but that wasn't the end. "Everyone cover your eyes, you'll be blind if you do not!" I warned. And with my warning there was a great blast of pure light that came in our direction, and though the light did not harm us with our eyes covered, I could hear the agonized screams of over a thousand undead as they vaporized before the light's purity.

After Roanna's blast of light, the entire battle field fell into chaos as elves and undead alike fell out of formation. Only the ever disciplined minotaur maintained their line while Kythosa, Sinatara, and Orison were all left to run about the battle field, struggling to pull their troops away from random scattering and one-on-one battles. To maximize mobility, Sinatara had to dismount her giant hydra lest she crush her troops wile trying to rally them. I myself broke away from the dark elf troops to run and talk to Roanna.

"Roanna you did it!"

"Yes. The Archmage said that I mastered white magic faster than anyone he's ever seen." As though fate desired to prove her point, a specter closed in on her from above only to be vaporized by a spark of light that emanated from Roanna's hand. She did not even need to look in the specter's direction. I was amazed.

"That is excellent! I am so proud of you!"

"He also said that I was kind and pretty and that I could be part of his harem. I don't know what a "harem" is but I think it's some kind of magic school, so do you think I should join it?" I could feel my eye twitch at the thought of Roanna being another of the archmage's wives. "We will discuss this later. I should get back to Sinatara."

On my way to Sinatara, I looked to Orison to see if he was up to something. Though his undead troops had a lack of emotion that generally makes them easier to control, he had much more work to do than Sinatara to get his troops in line, for his army, though shrinking, was still much larger than the dark elf force. When the opportunity arose, he broke away from organizing troops to cast a dark magic spell, but even before I could raise my hands to counter it, Roanna, would cure the troops. Roanna then cast a white magic spell to make the formally afflicted troops temporally immune to dark magic. Orison tried once again to use his "curse of the Netherworld" spell, but this, too, Roanna easily countered. With Orison's dark magic rendered useless, with our hydra and dragons overpowering the bone dragons, with necromancer troops falling to white magic, and amazons harassing enemies faster than ever before, victory seemed to be all around us. After blasting a group of ghouls with a fireball spell I rode up to Sinatara. "My lady, we are assured of victory, but crushing all these enemies will take hours, should we not call for a truce?"

Sinatara called forth enormous spikes of ice from beneath the ground that impaled many skeleton warriors. "We are assured of nothing yet. Look closer at the battle field, observe how one of the bone dragons is stronger than the others." Sure enough there was one bone dragon that somehow slashed open the throats two red dragons and two black dragons, before it slipped away into the shadows above. Sinatara then nodded to some amazons. "Look at those amazons there. They are over confident like you and have forgotten how to fight." The amazons Sinatara refereed to had so lost themselves in a bloody frenzy cutting down enemies that they were not running after their strikes. To save their lives, Kythosa had to run to her amazons and rip them off their opponents. There were several that she could not save from the teeth and claws of ghouls.

Still speaking, Sinatara used magic to rip stone spikes out of the ground to impale many ghouls. "Besides, in all this, we still have not found that last necromancer. I will be going back to re-aligning the elements of our enemies so just in case they surge back I can..."

"Look out!" I yelled before she could finish. I was too slow to save Sinatara from Lucretia's stealthy attack from behind. But Vaythose appeared out of thin air, and with a leap, he intercepted the vampire queen before she could decapitate Sinatara. Vaythose had knocked Lucretia to the ground. With one hand, he gripped her cloak while trying stab her in he heart with the other. The vampire queen dug her claws into Vaythose's arms, ripped him off her back, and with great strength threw him off, screaming, "Off of me, cave rat!" I ran to Vaythose as he gripped his arm in pain with blood staining his sleeve. My heart drum-rolled with fear, for Vaythose had become a fond friend.

"Vaythose, Roanna is distracted right now, so we should alert her so she can heal your injuries," I babbled. Vaythose looked at me blankly. Then, he looked off into the dusty battle field. "Did you hear me Vaythose?" I asked him. But my friend ripped himself away from grip, sprinting toward the great mass of fights still ongoing between dark elves and the undead. "Vaythose where are you going?!" I yelled as he charged into an opening, his eyes focused on a far away litch which was using an energy beam to try deter the attacks of black and red dragons. "Vaythose no!" Soon Vaythose captured the attention of the litch, who sent a blast of energy his way. There was an explosion, and when the dust cleared I expected to see a pile of charged bones that belonged to Vaythose. What I saw instead I saw emptiness where Vaythose once stood.

I was so enraged that despite my own waning strength, I lifted my hand to blast the litch, but Lucretia's vampires quickly descended upon me. Had Vaythose's men not rushed to my rescue I would have been killed. Even with their help, however, I would need to concentrate on the vampires. I was left unable to avenge Vaythose and worse yet, Sinatara was left to fight on her own.

Nearly drained of magic, I unsheathed my sword to fight close range. As I defended myself, I kept an eye on Sinatara's battle, for if I had the chance to help her I would have to take it. Besides, the only way to kill Lucretia permanently was to cast a certain spell that only I knew, upon her minutes before she was cut down.

Across the space of the cavern, the vampire and the dark elf leaders locked gazes. The vampire pointed her sword at Sinatara, with her other hand curled behind her back. "You would destroy yourself if you used a spell on me with such close quarters. What will you do now that you have to fight me in a civilized duel instead of at a safe distance?" As I blocked an attack from a Vampire, Sinatara took out her whip. The sharp, pointed end of the whip came at Lucretia faster than an arrow from a crossbow and yet the Lucretia dodged it with a spin and in the same motion cut at Sinatara. The dark elf mistress pushed herself away from the vampire's attack, giving her the distance she needed for another strike of the whip. Lucretia again dodged the strike, only this time, she twirled her sword in order to catch Sinatara's whip. She pulled it hoping to yank it out of Sinatara's hand. Instead Sinatara surprised Lucretia by running in the direction she was pulled and delivered a powerful round house kick that sent the vampire spinning to the ground. Having freed her whip, Sinatara had the perfect opportunity to strike at her opponent's heart, but instead she stumbled and reached out in front of her as though she could not see. Between the swords and the blades that crossed in front of me, from between all the vampires and dark elves fighting, I could see Orison with a wicked smile upon his face.

"Orison cast the blind spell on Sinatara! I must help her!" I declared. As though on cue, one of Vaythose's men parried an attack on me from a vampire with a wooden staff, allowing me the opening to escape

As I rode out to aid Sinatara, my instinct was to cast the cleansing spell to end her blindness, but then I saw her eyes become white on white, and that is when I realized that I did not need to. So I began to cast a spell of a different sort. Lucretia lurked behind Sinatara and Sinatara acted as though she could not see. The vampire queen smiled and licked her lips for she could not see the mystical marble that Sinatara had laced upon her whip. Lucretia charged aiming her sword at the dark elf lady's neck, and Sinatara would have lost her head, but at the last second she spun out of the way and shot her whip out. The whip did not land upon Lucretia, but powerful fire magic flowed through the whip and into the ground below the vampire queen's feet, burning her right leg and creating a minor explosion that knocked her off balance.

Lucretia did not seem to feel pain, but she growled in frustration, while the dark elf lady looked on on her. "I cannot see you while blind, but I can always see the elements that flow through you." By the time Sinatara finished her explanation, I had finished casting my spell, one that created a blue aurora around Lucretia.

"Strike her now Sinatara!" I yelled. "She can't be brought back if you are quick!" Sinatara exhaled a cold cloud of mist as ice magic coursed through her body and her whip. As her body tensed, I saw nothing in her white on white eyes, except a focus on her opponent. Lucretia was in a state of extreme vulnerability and yet I saw nothing in her but rage. The two women charged at each other, and I thought for sure that Sinatara would lay the vampire master low, but the true outcome surprised us all.

There was a loud roar as a black dragon swooped down and grabbed Lucretia by the shoulders and took her into the air. "Let go of me you foul beast!" The vampire queen screeched, as she bit and clawed at the dragon's talons in vain. It took only a few more seconds for the dragon to disappear into the shadowy caves above.

As Sinatara curled her whip and clipped it back onto its place on her belt, I rode to Vaythose's men. Vaythose had wrought a great victory. All the vampires had fallen with stakes in their hearts, and yet when I turned to Sinatara, I was still forlorn. "We have defeated a necromancer but Vaythose has perished. He was killed by a litch and he has no remains," I uttered miserably. Sinatara was slow to respond, for her mind became distant as she surveyed the field of battle.

"Cast a spell on Orison so that when he is slain he will not not resurrected."

"But Vaythose..." I started. Before I could finish I was interrupted.

"Never mind, you're too late." Sinatara said. She nodded her head in the direction of Orison. Orison had finally managed to resurrect. Moments within his awakening, he had amassed many zombies and ghouls. Adept at necromancy, he lined them up and readied them to charge to battle field, even if he had an undead body slumped with exhaustion. I tensed, for I thought that our line was going to be overwhelmed again with Orison's numbers, but then a shadow formed above him, and the enemy general raised his hand over his head reflexively as one of our friends saved the day for a third time.

The fat necromancer screamed as Vaythose the dark elf assassin fell upon him. Vaythose shoved a dagger deep into the zombie master's soft fat, puss-filled. neck. Orison gave one last whimper as he became lifeless and fell off his horse. Nimbly, Vaythose leaped back into the shadows before any undead troops could apprehend him.

"I cannot believe it!" I yelled. "With no necromancers to command them, the undead army will surely fall apart! If only I had acted in time to make sure he could not be resurrected later," I lamented.

Sinatara unleashed an spell on zombies surrounding her, shattering them like glass. Lightening emanated from her balled fist. "There is still one more necromancer."

"One more? Oh yes, the one that cast that fire ball..." Before I could finish my words, there was a horrible high pitched howl. It was a frightful howl that was so ghastly that I was paralyzed with dread and I curled in mental anguish. All of our troops desperately covered their ears even though it left them vulnerable. I, too, wanted desperately for the howl to stop, but it seemed to go on forever. I cried and then, for a second everything went black.

The scream had its consequence. I awoke in a completely different world, for we went from being on the verge of victory to the verge of defeat in but a few minutes. The undead we defeated were being raised much more rapidly than before and the undead army was almost entirely rebuilt. Our troops were either staggering or being slaughtered, and the only reason why our army was not entirely decimated was because Roanna had somehow managed to stay awake through the horrible cry and used the word of light spell to defend us even as anguished tears rolled down her face.

"What the hell happened?" Kythosa asked as she hobbled over to help Sinatara rise. Kythosa limped as though she had been hurt, but really all her injuries were in her mind. Sinatara had finally lost her stone visage, her eyes were wide with terror, bewilderment, and tears.

I had to scan the battle field, but soon saw it- a single spectral dragon with undead troops amassing and falling in ranks around it. I remembered things. I remembered in the undead city I had visited with Saylag, an undead rat on Orison's shoulder, a creature that Orison called, "master". No doubt the rat was a necromancer that had attached his spirit to a dead rat, but he since had his spirit moved to a spectral dragon.

"It is called the banshee's howl" I explained to Kythosa. "As its name says, it is battle cry that fills an enemy's mind with terror. Any necromancer can use it, but when I was soldier, I heard rumors that there are necromancers powerful enough to use it to rend a person's mind. A necromancer that powerful is over there." I pointed to the spectral dragon whose troops were amassing around it. Roanna attempted to blast the necromancer with the word of light spell, but before she cast it the spectral dragon cast a spell that caused earth spikes to rise below the hydra she rode on. The spikes impaling it, sending Roanna tumbling towards the ground, screaming.

"Roanna!" I yelled as I rode out as fast as Bofo would allow, willing to save her. A swarm of skeleton warriors intercepted me and stood in my way as they laughed at my despair. I growled and unleashed a blast of energy that had the force to go through several ranks of enemy, creating an explosion of bones and blades. I do not think I had ever acted so fast before or since, for even with so much in the way, I managed to catch Roanna in both arms.

"Abraham...you saved me," Roanna said weakly. Her body was limb with exhaustion and her clothes soaked and wet with sweat.

"You're bleeding." I lamented as I felt warm red fluid flow slowly over my hand.

"I can heal it." My attention turned from my beloved. I caught sight of the necromancer general charging at us from the corner of my eye.

"I will kill you!" it yelled, its voice the sound of pure rage. I projected a powerful blast of energy to protect Roanna. Even if it was the most powerful blast of energy I had ever produced, the impact to the necromancer's skull only pushed it back. My blast did even less to the undead creatures moving in from all sides and from above to surround us.

Roanna found enough life in her tired body to cast a summoning spell. It brought forth several dozen rock elementals to surround us. When a one-headed hydra ran to our aid, Roanna found still more energy with in herself to cast the white magic spell called "endurance" to enhance the durability of the hydra and the elementals. Many of our enemy's blades were broken on their hard hides and smashed by a heavy stone fist. With hydra using their long necks to defend us from above, it seemed we were safe from all directions. However, the claws and spells of the necromancer were very strong, reducing some of the stone elementals to rubble. Some of the elementals punched the necromancer inside the bone dragon, but this did little damage to it and made it angrier besides. Even the hydra were in trouble, for undead troops gouged at their legs even as they were being kicked asunder.

"Abraham where are you?" Kythosa yelled. High on Bofo, I could see some distance from me into the commotion of combat. Although I could not see Kythosa or her warriors carving their way into a great forest of enemies, I knew that is was in this area where she was.

"Roanna and I are over here!" The necromancer made a gap in our defense, peeling and tossing our Rock elementals like it were peeling an orange. Other elementals ran to fill the gap, but the line was getting thin. Then I saw a sickly green aura form around the necromancer.

"Kythosa we need your help," I pleaded. What I had said had never been truer. Magical energy began to form in the necromancer's mouth. I looked back to Kythosa and realized there was no way she could break through the masses of enemy and help us soon enough. As a mage, I could feel the gathering magic crackling through my very being. Energy was amassing in and around the possessed bone dragon, proving that any moment a spell would be unleashed that would not fail to destroy Roanna and I along with the elementals. Finally, the possessed bone dragon unleashed a powerful lightning spell that would have killed us if only a Hydra did not whack the necromancer's skull with its tail, diverting its blast. To my delight, a hundred undead troops caught the brunt of the blast instead. As they were destroyed, it allowed Kythosa, along with many minotaurs and lizard riders, to swarm in and form a circle to protect Roanna and I. Grateful, I cast my gaze upwards toward the one-head hydra whom had saved us from death by lightening.

"You despicable creature!" The bone dragon hissed as it used its wings to fly upwards and snap down at the hydra's throat. I felt sickened when this was a battle the hydra lost.

As soon the possessed bone dragon with a necromancer inside finished off the hydra, Kythosa took a position beside Roanna and I, so she could whisper a plan of action.

"Abraham we gotta get Roanna to Sinatara! We are going to try and realign the elements like Sinatara wanted to originally, but we need to keep that damn bone dragon occupied. We need to..." Kythosa had to take a moment to duck a swing from a skeleton warrior's mace. In the same motion, she tripped the skeleton and let some of its fellows trample it. With the enemy dispatched, Kythosa could continue speaking as she slashed at more enemies, "...to get Roanna to Sinatara so she can help!"

The necromancer-possessed dragon landed and Kythosa took a position in front of it her blades, while the minotaur and lizard riders made a circle of safety similar to how the stone elementals did. The necromancer then charged at Kythosa roaring, an animated mass of hatred bent on killing us. Kythosa was about to strike, but I forced my way to Kythosa's side and faced the necromancer with pure determination to protect Roanna and my friends.

The necromancer swiped its claws at me, but I dodged, blasting it with a powerful ray of energy. In the end, I was forcing the necromancer back with one blast after another! Under any other circumstances this constant use of my magic would have exhausted me to the point of collapse, but I did that feel that then; only the desire to protect Roanna and to pummel this necromancer until it shattered. My vision became narrow and blurry as my tears, sweat and passion blinded me, but I kept blasting this enemy until finally several other spectral dragons swooped down upon me.

"Get down!" Kythosa yelled as she forced me to the ground to dodge the swooping bone dragons. We would have been torn asunder, but a friend came to our aid.

"Ally 'oop!" He said as he jumped on the head of a bone dragon and placed some mystical marble dust in its eye socket.

"Vaythose!" I said excitedly. Vaythose put two fingers in his mouth, whistled and then leapt off the bone dragon's head for his whistling was a signal for Sinatara to hit the undead dragons with a powerful ice spell that also cleared an escape path.

"In the flesh or what's left of it," Vaythose remarked as he gripped his injured arm and his more recently injured side.

Roanna rushed to Vaythose's side and said, "Hold still," and then preceded to heal both his wounds and hers with the glow of white magic. I knew what to do next.

"Vaythose, take Roanna to Sinatara, and Roanna, Sinatara is going to need you to cast elemental magic with her, I mean if you have any energy left." Roanna only nodded and just as minotaur came rushing in to protect us, Roanna and Vaythose were off and Kythosa and I were left to deal with the necromancer. As the spectral dragon rose to face me, I cast the spell to ensure that if it died it could not be brought back.

"Your final death happens today, necromancer," I threatened as I clenched my fist and aimed them at it.

"Damn straight," Kythosa stated, "You're going down!"

"Don't be a fool," the necromancer hissed. "I have lived for over a thousand years. I am undying." I scoffed at what the creature said and then we fought.

We dodged its attacks constantly while blasting it, but its bones were hard to break. The creature bit and snapped at us, but we were faster. Neither one of us made any headway against the other until finally I lodged a rock in the joints of its front leg and blasted it. Its front-left femur flew into the distance. Kythosa mounted the creature and managed to lop off a wing. Then Kythosa and I fell to our knees in exhaustion.

"Ha!" The necromancer hissed. " I can be rebuilt and you are too tried to do much more, and besides your minotaur leave! This is the end for you," it scoffed. Sure enough, the minotaur were deserting me, but I was not discouraged for I knew the real reason why. It was about to begin.

"No necromancer. This is the end for you."

The entire earth shook, causing many of the undead troops to loose their balance. Then enormous spikes rose from the ground and stones fell upon the undead troops, crushing and shattering them.

"No!" the necromancer shouted struggling to move.

"Yes! The elements are aligned," I boasted. After much of the earth had opened, water that was flowing from below us burst forth and then turned to ice and expanded destroying much in its path. I looked high into the distance and saw Sinatara and Roanna bathing in a violet glow as their magic built up. Together they were a spectral spire of pure power.

Lighting shot forth from the ice spikes, destroying many more undead and created fire which was enhanced by wind which incinerated all before it. "No!" the necromancer screamed as it attempted to cast a fire ball to eskew the alignment, but I shot an energy blast at it before it could act.

I ran away toward Sinatara and Roanna, for where they stood would be the only place where I would not be consumed by the spells. It was one powerful elemental spell after another, each one enhancing the last. Many undead tried to flee, but Roanna and Sinatara maneuvered the wind, earth, fire and water their way to incinerate them. I heard the necromancer behind me scream.

"This cannot happen, I am undying, UNDYING!" As the necromancer spoke a tornado of pure fire raged through it, and it gave one last agonized scream before it was reduced to ashes and dust. As we struggled to safety I gave one last look behind me and saw that the elemental spells were appearing faster and faster, until for a second, just a second, all the elements seemed to blur into one and it was this one element that destroyed the entire undead army.

After a respite much too short to heal our wounds, the army of the dark elves regrouped and began to march away from the sight of the great battle we had just wrought.

"Come on, we're almost done for the day," Kythosa encouraged. Once again, we marched or rather stumbled along weakly. All of our bodies ached with exhaustion, yet we had to make our way over rough terrain. We could not stop for even with the necromancers defeated, Sinatara still had to speak with her other rival Maydonna, and she did want to do that without an army. Even with an army, I did not know what she would say to Maydonna, for the constant casting of spells had made her so weary she could barely stay awake, reduced to being carried in a wagon. Hardly a threat to Maydonna's fresh troops.

Like everyone else I forced my broken body to march. Roanna was loaded on Bofo's back even though she could barely sit up.

"Abraham..." Roanna began weakly.

"Sleep, Roanna, for after casting so many spells you need rest. You're lucky to be alive," I murmured. Despite my insistence she chose to continue her sentence.

"Thank you for saving me. I am sorry to put you through so much trouble."

"You have done no such thing." Roanna's eyes gave one last flutter, and I had to halt Bofo, before she succumbed to sleep. Kythosa pulled Roanna off Bofo's back, more gentle than a wizard might have ever believed a dark elf could be.

"Rest easy girl. You did good," the proud warrior said.

"What is the point of this, Kythosa?" I asked. "Sinatara is forbidden by the dragon goddess from attacking any of her fellow dark elves besides Maydonna." Kythosa sighed at what I said.

"The boss is probably using us as a kind of bluff. But you've done more than we would expect any outsider to do. If you want to leave us go on ahead." I shook my head.

"Kythosa, there should be no doubt by now that even as a foreigner, I am every bit as involved with this as you are."

Kythosa was silent for a moment and then she nodded. "Fine then, but stop bellyaching". At last we reached our destination- a cliff that formed a valley in which a jagged road cut through. From there, we could hear the marching of Maydonna's army, and had it been our intention we could have ducked behind some rocks for an ambush. Even so, Sinatara hobbled out of her wagon, and with the help of a minotaur made it high onto the cliff. Maydonna arrived, riding a lizard, leading her army, and by raising her hand she gave her troops the order to halt. She looked up at Sinatara.

"I have already heard what happened to the necromancers. Are you here to gloat, then?"

"If you know what happened, then you know that it is pointless for our armies to battle. We defeated the necromancers so we can defeat you, and even if we didn't our allies would come to protect us." Maydonna growled.

"Do you expect me to back down, then? Is that what you are saying?" Sinatara looked down at Maydonna and let her silent stare speak. Kythosa took a position beside Sinatara to do the same. Maydonna just scoffed.

"If you really believed in the unity of the dark elves you would be the one to surrender. Look at you. You tell us lords that we must surrender our sovereignty to unity, but then you strive and stand defiantly against all odds all to make sure you have sovereignty over your puny little clan. I challenge you to tell me there is no hypocrisy in that."

Kythosa interjected. "That is bull! If Sinatara didn't stay head of our clan she wouldn't have any way to unite...OWWWWW!"

"Silence, Kythosa," Sinatara ordered as she unleashed a crackle of lightning that shocked Kythosa and brought her to her knees. Kythosa then crawled away. Even among friends, punishment remained cruel among dark elves. "I do not claim that what I do is free of hypocrisy, Maydonna," Sinatara confessed. "But I have a way to end our conflict once and for all." Sinatara then pulled out her whip. "A duel for each other's clan. Defeat me and my clan goes to you. If I defeat you, your clan belongs to me. To win, one must kill the other or at least injure them so they can no longer fight. Do you accept?"

"Even without hypocrisy, your cause is hollow. I fight for the freedom bestowed upon us by our great founder, Tuidanna. You cause comes from nowhere except your own insane mind!" Maydonna hissed.

"Do you accept?" Sinatara asked again.

"Yes I do!" Maydonna declared as she pulled out her own whip.

With a snap of her fingers a hydra lowered a head for Sinatara to grip. The top matriarch of her dark elf clan leaned back against the hydra's massive skull, clinging to her seat upon it firmly. Then the beast reached its long neck down, lowering Sinitara into the valley. Sinatara stepped down from her perch. The dark elf lady then assumed a fighting position, ready to take on Maydonna, except she wobbled. Her opponent shook her head.

"You have something wrong with you, Sinatara. You are clearly too weakened to have a hope of winning. Besides, if you are so determined to fight the very freedom that our people were founded under, then you have a deeply disturbed and twisted mind. I promise you when I defeat you, I will not kill, but I will put you in a cage for the rest of your life, just like your crazed mother." Like war and tragedy, Maydonna's words failed to faze Sinatara, who seemed to be calculating just how she was going to win this fight. While Sinatara and Maydonna studied each other before attacking, I questioned Vaythose about this strange ritual.

"Is a duel like this typical?" I asked.

Vaythose's eyes were still focused on the two women when he answered. "When a clan leader dies there's usually a fighting tournament to decide who will replace them. This is a little different, but since fighting is the way to take a clan I think we would all find the victor to be the leader of our clans."

"Would you really accept Maydonna as your leader if she won?" I asked.

"I just hope she doesn't." He said.

The eyes of Sinatara's troops and the eyes of Maydonna's were all focused on the battle at hand. It felt as though a minute went by of the two Amazons just staring each-other down. Then Sinatara sprinted, uncurling her whip in the process. Maydonna dodge the attack by tilting her body slightly to the left, and then followed by charging forward and trying to whip Sinatara's side. Sinatara spun out the way and brought herself behind Maydonna in an attempt lash her back.

"Too slow!" Maydonna criticized as she ducked, spun and gave Sinatara a bloody lash on her stomach. Sinatara winced from the pain and tried to bring her whip to bear for a retaliatory strike, but it was not to be. I cringed after Maydonna got too close for Sinatara to use her whip, headbutted her in the teeth, then round house kicked her in the face, and finally, after pushing her away, gave Sinatara a harsh lash to her right leg that finally brought her down.

"You're pathetic." Maydonna laughed at Sinatara as she repeatedly whipped her as the leader I had fought so hard for struggled to get up. Every time I saw blood splatter on the rock floor my heart sank, for I desperately wanted the tide to turn. Finally Sinatara managed to sit up just enough to shoot her whip out. Sinatara lashed not at Maydonna but instead caught Maydonna's whip with her own and tangled it. Maydonna tried to pull her whip away, but this gave Sinatara the opportunity to rise off the ground just enough to elbow Maydonna in the stomach and trip her.

With Sinatara back on her feet and Maydonna on the ground, Sinatara now had the opportunity to whip her and she did. However when Sinatara's lashes landed Maydonna shed not blood, but dried flesh off of her undead body.

"You can't hurt me now," Maydonna boasted. "Why do you think I agreed to this, hmm?" Maydonna rose up and began whipping at Sinatara in a frenzy of blood lust. Sinatara managed to dodge most of the blows, but she was trapped on the defensive. Even so, Sinatara bore the pain and lashed out her whip in such away that it would twirl around Maydonna's ankle and pulled. Maydonna was knocked on the rock floor and that was not her only problem.

"My foot...How did you take my foot off?" Maydonna lamented in shock.

"It would only be a sprained ankle if you were whole, but alas you are so rotted away that you have become brittle."

"Why you little..." Before Maydona could finish what she was saying Sinatara dropped her whip, grabbed both of Maydonna's hands and pressing her left foot on Maydonna's chest ripped off both of her arms. Sinatara then tossed both of the arms aside, turning her back on Maydonna.

"You will pay for this!" Maydonna hissed. "Arrest her." No one moved. "What are you waiting for?!" She demanded when her troops did not respond. Sinatara then turned to face Maydonna's clan who took no action.

"Don't tell me you're actually going to follow this witch," the armless woman lamented. "Even if she did win the duel, she's a mad woman and a traitor to her people." No one replied but after a tense few moments a Shadow Priestess amongst Maydonna's clan spoke.

"According to the law of our goddess, Sinitara, you are indeed leader of this clan. Without a doubt, you are a more competent leader than this fool, Maydonna."

"Hey!" the fool screeched. The priestess ignored her former master and continued to speak. "But it is also true that when the wood elf king tried to force centralization upon the elves our founder, Tuidanna resisted and our people were created out of this resistance. How then can you talk of unity when our ancestor worked so hard to prevent it?"

Sinatara took a deep sigh, for this was the first time I ever saw what looked to be concern upon her face, as though even after all her fighting, all her efforts, her heart was still weighed down by this priestess' simple question. Even so, I could see her looking deep inside her self for something meaningful. Then she found it.

"I admire Tuidanna, with all my heart because she delivered us from the tyranny of the wood elf king and so we are safe. But since her passing, division has been delivering us back to tyranny. Foreigners like the necromancers use as game pieces in their wars, killing us so they do not have to kill us or their enemies themselves. We kill each other, not thinking that while we are sharpening our knives upon each others bodies when we are really sinking further into poverty while the rest of the world surges past us. If we are to truly follow Tuidanna's example, then we must save our people from our division just like she saved us from tyranny."

The silence was deafening, but it was broken when one of Maydonna's troops stepped forward and took his place among our ranks, and we welcomed him with pats on the back and smiles. Then two more troops came, then three more, then six more. Soon all of Maydonna's soldiers were marching to our side, and all Maydonna could do was scream in frustration as all her power walked away from her. Sinatara was still dripping with blood, but even so she could stand proud for her former enemies had respected her enough to turn away from what they knew and join her into the unknown.

Epilouge.

"Are you really sure that this will be the day she comes?" Roanna asked me.

"I am absolutely certain, you know how much sailing I did in my life so I know how long it would take for her to arrive!" It had been a month since we and Sinatara routed the necromancers, and we now waited for the necromancer's diplomat to arrive so that she could sign an official treaty of surrender. In the mean time Roanna and I worked on the surface planting apple trees.

"You didn't know how long it would take the other days you said she would come," Roanna protested. Since I had first met her, Roanna had come to open up to me more, yet she was still the beautiful, feminine almost-angel I remembered her to be. She was still timid. Even so, she felt very safe to speak her mind. I threw another mound of dirt over my shoulder.

"Well we shall see. This hole is deep enough," I said. "Ready the sapling."

"You mean the baby tree?" Roanna asked.

"Yes. The baby tree." Roanna tilted the five foot sapling to me and I held onto it from the other side. Working together, we managed to place the apple sapling in the dirt.

As we secured the sapling, Roanna wiped the sweat off her forehead and asked, "Can we rest in the shade? The sun is so hot." I was hardly phased by the heat and the light, but for some one who had lived in a cave for most of their life the sun light must have been harsh. We shared a canteen of water, each of us only taking small sips so as not to steal too much water from the other. Though she was uncomfortable with the heat, Roanna choose to sit very close to me.

"So how long before our apple trees bear fruit?" she asked.

"It is nothing to rush, it will be years before we have apples," I said back.

"Years? Maybe I can use a white magic spell to help it grow faster," she suggested.

"I would not. It would make the tree brittle. Imagine if you used white magic to rush the growth of an elf child." For a little longer we sat silently, during which time we were treated to the songs of small birds and the sight of flowers. Roanna seemed particularly fascinated with a monarch butterfly that landed on a daisy. I interrupted our silent sitting when I saw something on the ocean. I shot up to get a better look and sure enough it was what we had been waiting for it.

"That is Raven's ship. The ambassador has arrived." Roanna and I ran to alert Sinatara. Sinatara summoned Kythosa, her amazons and some minotaurs to join us above ground. I ran to the sea shore with a red flag to alert Raven, the necromancer ambassador, and her crew of where we intended to meet her. In the distance, I saw three zombies pick up an anchor and drop it, with a great splash. Skeletons prepared a row boat for the ambassador, Sinatara had her troops form to lines at her left and right flank. I took my place next to Kythosa. We saw the necromancer/ambassador Raven step off her sailing vessel and on to the row boat, which was then lowered down down into the water. Raven stood out form her crew by carrying a staff and wearing a dark blue, almost black, cape and hood. The necromancer kept her face covered but sometimes I got a glimpse of her glowing green eyes and bony visage.

"God damn, she's the creepiest one yet," Kythosa whispered to me. "Who is she?"

"She is Raven, and before she let herself rot she was a true beauty or at least that is what I have been told."

"Hush." Roanna chastened. I could barely make out Raven's mummified skeleton face from under the shadow of her hood and cape, and yet I had no doubt we would be treated to a repulsive sight once she revealed her face completely. Sinatara stood with Kythosa and Vaythose at her side as she stood to receive Raven from her ship. When she reached an arm's length from Sinatara, her skeleton hands pulled back her hood and we could see her horribly decayed face. I assumed everything about her was frightening, but my assumption was challenged when she spoke.

"Greetings, Lady Sinatara. I am Raven and I have been sent here to negotiate our peace." In contrast to her face Raven's voice was beautiful, like the voice of someone born to be a mother. As always, Sinatara was unmoved.

"There is nothing to negotiate." Sinatara handed the ambassador a scroll. As Raven accepted the scroll and broke its seal Sinatara described what was in the treaty. "That is the only treaty we will accept. It says that we will cease all hostilities against the necromancers and that while we are willing to engage in trade with both the wizards and necromancers, we shall be allied with neither. Furthermore, your people are never allowed to be engaged in an alliance with a dark elf clan without my permission, for the days of dark elves being soldiers in your proxy wars are done. Also, we wish to return a prisoner to you." With that two Minotaur brought a broken and battered Lucretia to Raven's feet.

"Her mind was severely damaged by the black dragons. Hence, she will not respond to anything you say, but she will recover eventually. If this treaty will not suffice then I promise that my soldiers will be upon your door steps." Raven's glowing green eyes scanned the document to confirm that the words written were the same as the words spoken. When she found they were a skeleton brought her a pen and ink while a zombie showed her its back to provide a writing surface.

"I could not have asked for a fairer treaty given the size of your victory," Raven said as she signed the document and handed it to Sinatara. "If that will be all, I shall be off."

"Wait," I called out just as Raven turned her back.

"Oh yes, you must be Abraham the merchant. How may I serve you?"

"I cannot help but wonder..." I began, "I was told that you were a fair-skinned beauty that men would die for and yet you let that yourself...change. Why?" Raven laughed.

"I will always be beautiful no matter what I look like." With that a zombie hoisted a broken Lucretia upon its shoulder, and the undead rode their way back to their gallion to set off again. With their disappearance into the horizon we could all close a chapter on what had been a hard fought battle.

Since coming to the dark elf caves I had learned so much and had changed so much and yet I still had so much more to do. I had to set up shop in the caverns, which would mean hundreds of people would have to join me, and as Roanna's hand rested in mine I was reminded that I had a loved one to save from a dreadful prophecy. Even with so much done I was forced to acknowledge that my adventure had not ended, but had begun.


End file.
